WATCHDOGS OF THE SEA.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 211, 19 May 1915, Page 2

WATCHDOGS OF THE SEA.

NAVAL DUTY OFF THE DARDANELLES. A night in the life of those hardy lads who keep watch and ward over the seas on the decks of the snake-like destroyers is vividly described in a letter which a young naval officer has sent home from the Eastern Mediterranean, where his ship is on the lookout for the enemy. The destroyers there have no land base, and so the men never get ashore. Now and then they anchor for a day or night rest under the lee of an island which they are blockading, and every night when on patrol ,and even when at anchor for those so-called rests, they are in sight of th e enemy's batteries and searchlights. And all the time there is the menace of mines to be faced, added to the discomforts of heavy seas and storms of wind, rain and sleet. "At each gun and tube," writes the officer, "is a man on watch, trying to see through the blackness and spray, holding on for all he's worth each time a 'sea 'breaks over her. At each gun and tube is huddled a heap of oilskins (or sometimes two ofr three, according to the position of the gun or tube) —this is an officer or seaman asleep trying to sleep at his station, ready to be full "awake and at his station the second I yell out 'Night action.' Well this, mark you, is thirteen hours on end in one continual, howling gale, as often as not with seas breaking over him, and sleet-storms at intervals.

"I have the ship's cook and the wardroom steward told off to make cocoa all night for the men on watch — hot, thick, oily ship's cocoa; and once every hour a staggering oilskin form is seen on the reeling decks, hanging on with one hand and balancing a bucket of cocoa with the other (the ship's cook: is a fat man, and it is a hard iob). and as of* c n "8 noot gets half spilt. When the is washed out by the sea then ip no cocoa, and one feels like de"th shout four to nix a.m. "In spite of the suspense and the truly awful weather and great hardships, we aire a very happy family."